Steve, I think that is a fair effort. I'm going to give it a little time to digest, before I respond.
One thing that I do want to talk about is a concept that I learned about last week that I didn't quite understand before: official hazards in wilderness. This was in the context of an advanced class in cutting trees that I was involved in, in which we were discussing what hazards exist that the public must be warned about. The answer: there are none by definition. The wilderness is a wild place that is not defined by man nor managed by man. As such, it should not have it's dangers be defined by any agency, but rather, be defined by the individual traversing it themselves so as to actually experience a wilderness place. To do othewise is to steal wilderness from American experience.
So to have a ranger stand in a wilderness area, and order people to do something because of danger, is antithetical to wilderness meaning. People who are into wilderness are very passionate about these things!
If that is true, what is the justification for banning basejumping in yosemite?
It seems a bit arbitrary considering that the wilderness is "managed by man", in that things like trail building/maintenance, fish stocking, and restrictions on access take place. And when you pick up a wilderness permit the rangers do warn you about hazards, at least in general terms. Since the cables are manmade, and maintained by the park service, it's not exactly untouched wilderness anyway. What is the problem of turning people away if conditions are dangerous?
